(click for larger view)

"Untitled Horse" #2
Original Sumi Ink on Paper
32" H x 24" W
Signed and Dated
$3.700

"Untitled Horse #3"
Original Sumi Ink on Paper
32" H x 24" W
Signed and Dated
$3,750 Custom framed

When John Young died at the age of 88, a Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial said that he was "Hawaii's foremost contributor to the world of art." The Hawaii State Senate agreed, having previously elected him a "Living Treasure of Hawaii".

John Young was indeed the most influential modern artist in Hawaii. He was a self-taught artist whose admitted influences included Max Ernst and the cave paintings from Lascaux, France, Chinese brush paintings and the work of Delacroix and Jackson Pollock, all of which can be seen in Young's work.

The major unifying characteristic of John Young's work is an energetic exhuberance. It is easy to visualize how physical the artist had to be as he attacked his canvases. The enery and the speed that he worked are palpable. The sweeping strokes he used to apply the paint, the way he used tubes of pigment to squirt onto the canvas and his vibrant color choices epitomize the personifgication of his surname, Young.

(click for larger view)

"Untitled (Horse & Rider)"
Original Watercolor Painting
14-1/2" H x 22" W
Signed and dated
$3.000 Custom framed

Unlike most artists, Young chose to name only a few of his works. Some he didn't even sign and only a few are dated. The three Sumi ink paintings that are being offered are all signed and dated, which in itself makes the paintings rarities on the market.

John Young was known for his landscapes, children, figures and horses. He was always fascinated by Chinese horse paintings, but there was a power and majesty about Young's horse paintings that sets them apart. Young worked in oil, watercolor, ink, pastel, pencil, prints and mixed media.

The unique thing about a John Young work of art is that it is not just a visual feast. Young beckons his viewers to hear, smell and feel his work. It is not intellectual; it is truly sensory like no other two-dimensional art that you will see in Hawaii.

Over the 60 years that he worked as an artist, Young exhibited in such prestigious institutions as the Metropolitan Museaum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Art. His work is in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art among others, along with private collections throughout the world.

The Hana Coast Gallery is pleased and proud to have been chosen by the John Youn Foundation as the only art gallery on the Island of Maui to exhibit the work of this extraordinary Hawaii artist.